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| PITY the sorrows of a poor old man! | |
| Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door, | |
| Whose days are dwindled to the shortest span, | |
| O, give relief, and Heaven will bless your store. | |
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| These tattered clothes my poverty bespeak, | 5 |
| These hoary locks proclaim my lengthened years; | |
| And many a furrow in my grief-worn cheek | |
| Has been the channel to a stream of tears. | |
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| Yon house, erected on the rising ground, | |
| With tempting aspect drew me from my road, | 10 |
| For plenty there a residence has found, | |
| And grandeur a magnificent abode. | |
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| (Hard is the fate of the infirm and poor!) | |
| Here craving for a morsel of their bread, | |
| A pampered menial drove me from the door, | 15 |
| To seek a shelter in the humble shed. | |
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| O, take me to your hospitable dome, | |
| Keen blows the wind, and piercing is the cold! | |
| Short is my passage to the friendly tomb, | |
| For I am poor and miserably old. | 20 |
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| Should I reveal the source of every grief, | |
| If soft humanity e’er touched your breast, | |
| Your hands would not withhold the kind relief, | |
| And tears of pity could not be repressed. | |
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| Heaven sends misfortunes,—why should we repine? | 25 |
| ’T is Heaven has brought me to the state you see: | |
| And your condition may be soon like mine, | |
| The child of sorrow and of misery. | |
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| A little farm was my paternal lot, | |
| Then, like the lark, I sprightly hailed the morn; | 30 |
| But ah! oppression forced me from my cot; | |
| My cattle died, and blighted was my corn. | |
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| My daughter,—once the comfort of my age! | |
| Lured by a villain from her native home, | |
| Is cast, abandoned, on the world’s wild stage, | 35 |
| And doomed in scanty poverty to roam. | |
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| My tender wife,—sweet soother of my care!— | |
| Struck with sad anguish at the stern decree, | |
| Fell,—lingering fell, a victim to despair, | |
| And left the world to wretchedness and me. | 40 |
| |
| Pity the sorrows of a poor old man! | |
| Whose trembling limbs have born him to your door, | |
| Whose days are dwindled to the shortest span, | |
| O, give relief, and Heaven will bless your store. | |
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